As the details emerge about the backgrounds of the perpetrators of the jihadi attack on the Inland Regional Center, a facility for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California, two things are crystal clear – the assault was carried out by three Muslims who have family backgrounds from Muslim majority countries – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.The lead attacker, Syed Rizwan Farook, was described by his own father as “very religious” (so much for the George W. Bush myth that Islam is a religion of peace) although the relative level of devotion to Islam of his accomplices Tashfeen Malik and Tayyeep bin Ardogan are at this point unknown, the notion that outward signs of Muslim religious devotion are indicative of a propensity toward violence is shallow to say the least.The key to understanding the California attack and the other jihadi assaults on America and the West, such as the recent attacks in Paris, is the concept of Islamic supremacy embodied in Shariah – Islamic law.If you are a Shariah compliant Muslim, as our friend Daniel Horowitz has observed, you're a member of the global jihadist movement, and this, as we’ve noted many times is not a “religion” as those raised in the Western Enlightenment understand the term.Islam, as it is practiced by millions of Muslims around the world, is a totalitarian political system that regulates the lives of adherents in the minutest detail and whose goal is a worldwide Islamic Caliphate bestowing absolute power on its leaders.It is virtually the polar opposite of the American system of constitutional liberty.Islam, as it is practiced by millions of adherents around the globe is, in the words of Daniel Pipes, “transformed from a personal faith into a ruling system that knows no constraints.”Yet, our political leaders, such as Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and President Barack Obama refuse to acknowledge this reality.UPDATE: In a truly astonishing comment regarding the jihadi attack in San Bernardino Speaker Ryan told CBS News: “[W]hat we have seen in a common theme among many of these mass shootings is the theme of mental illness... And we need to fix our mental illness laws, our policies. They’re outdated. And that is something that we are working on right now.”UPDATE #2: U.S. investigators are evaluating evidence that Tashfeen Malik, a Pakistani native who had been living in Saudi Arabia when she married Farook, had pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, two U.S. officials told Reuters. CNN reported on Friday that one U.S. official said Malik had pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in a posting on Facebook made on Wednesday, the day of the attack, under an account that used a different name.
While fundamentalist Islam differs in its details from other utopian ideologies, said Pipes, it closely resembles them in scope and ambition. Like communism and fascism, it offers a vanguard ideology; a complete program to improve man and create a new society; complete control over that society; and cadres ready, even eager, to spill blood.At the height of the Cold War, would we have admitted thousands of communists into America as refugees?No, we actually passed laws against Communists entering America and becoming a fifth column in our existential battle with Soviet-inspired World Communism.The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (also known as the McCarran–Walter Act) allowed the government to deport immigrants or naturalized citizens engaged in subversive activities and also allowed the barring of suspected subversives from entering the country. And apropos the issue of Muslim immigration, it was used to bar members and former members and "fellow travelers" of the Communist Party from entry into the United States.When the bill first passed President Harry Truman vetoed it, using much the same language and arguments used by today’s establishment politicians against heightened scrutiny of Muslim immigration:We do not need to be protected against immigrants from these countries–on the contrary we want to stretch out a helping hand, to save those who have managed to flee into Western Europe, to succor those who are brave enough to escape from barbarism, to welcome and restore them against the day when their countries will, as we hope, be free again....These are only a few examples of the absurdity, the cruelty of carrying over into this year of 1952 the isolationist limitations of our 1924 law.In no other realm of our national life are we so hampered and stultified by the dead hand of the past, as we are in this field of immigration.Senator McCarron’s retort is equally representative of the views of today’s country class citizens who oppose the enemies of constitutional government being brought here at taxpayer expense to undermine their liberties:I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished. I take no issue with those who would praise the contributions which have been made to our society by people of many races, of varied creeds and colors. ... However, we have in the United States today hard-core, indigestible blocs which have not become integrated into the American way of life, but which, on the contrary are its deadly enemies. Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain. The solution of the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States. ... I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation's downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.Daniel Pipes, in an essay published in 1995 quoted Ahmad Nawfal, a Muslim Brother from Jordan, who said that "If we have a choice between democracy and dictatorship, we choose democracy. But if it's between Islam and democracy, we choose Islam." Pipes also noted Hadi Hawang of PAS in Malaysia made the same point more bluntly: "I am not interested in democracy, Islam is not democracy, Islam is Islam." Or, in the famous (if not completely verified) words of 'Ali Belhadj, a leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), "When we are in power, there will be no more elections because God will be ruling."Islam, as it is today practiced by millions of Muslims across the globe, is inimical to the separation of church and state and government based on constitutional liberty. We are in a war of ideas, not just with radical Islamists, but with concepts deeply embedded in Muslim culture. And as long as mass legal (and illegal) immigration from Muslim countries continues unabated we are losing that war.It is time to stop voluntarily bringing the enemies of constitutional liberty into our country. Our government has the constitutional authority and the precedent; now is the time, before the enemy reaches critical mass, to ban most Muslim immigration to America.